Berceuse d'Izumo

Sleep, baby, sleep! On mountains steep

The children of the hare are straying.

Why are their soft brown ears so long and slender,

Peeping above the rocks where they are playing?

Because their mother, ere they yet were born,

Ate the Loquat leaves in the dewy morn,

And the bamboo grass long and slender--

That's why the ears of baby-hares are long!

Sleep, baby, sleep! to the lilt of my song!